THE COMMON CONSTITUTIONALIST

Republicans' repeal-but-not-really betrayal

Brent Smith, aka The Common Constitutionalist, is a constitutional conservative who advocates for first principles – the founders' original intent and enemy of progressives. He is former Navy and a martial arts expert. Smith considers himself just an average Joe with no formal journalism background – but rather than simply complain about the state of our nation, he took to the Internet to battle the left. Check out Brent Smith's blog.

I do a weekly podcast in which I normally discuss two or three topics that interest me (and hopefully the listener). However, this past Sunday, being so infuriated, I ended up devoting the entire time to one subject – the repeal of Obamacare. You may listen to it here.

Many Americans elected Donald Trump for one reason. They think he will fight for them. They see him as a symbol of hope – to break the cycle of Washington insider politics-as-usual. They/we are tired of broken promises that predictably occur after every election. They/we want Trump to break this cycle.

Trump or no, it appears the cycle continues, like the Italian rail system, right on schedule.

Daniel Horowitz at Conservative Review correctly states that the Republicans are in fact not going to do what they promised us when they asked for and received our votes this past election. They will not do what Ted Cruz wants them to do – “Repeal every word of Obamacare” – but instead are “faking the Obamacare repeal.”

Horowitz went on the Mark Levin radio program to explain that the Republicans plan to only repeal “some” of the health-care law, but nothing close to all. He explains that Republican leadership has no interest in repealing “the heart and soul of what Obamacare is – the regulatory mandates, the insurance coverage mandates – that they [insurance companies] have to cover everything under the sun.”

Horowitz explains that these mandates are the very things that make Obamacare so expensive – to cause premiums to spike to unsustainable levels – and that “they will remain in place.”

He goes on to disclose that the Republican “replacement plan that they are cooking up will be just as expensive as Obamacare itself.” To this Levin adds that Republicans are just going to “play around the edges,” and in fact are “embracing the ideology and the core of Obamacare.”

None of us should be surprised by this “revelation.” It’s hardly a departure from their standard modus operandi, or that of any politician – to say one thing and do (or not do) another.

Where is President-elect Trump on this issue? Why has he remained mute? Repeal of Obamacare was a major issue for him and many during the primaries. I pulled from his own campaign website a rather definitive declaration. “On day one of the Trump administration, we will ask Congress to immediately deliver a full repeal of Obamacare.”

Horowitz urged us to remember that Donald Trump ran on “expanding HSAs (health savings accounts), getting rid of regulations. He certainly did not run on keeping and maintaining the main parts of Obamacare.”

Yet Levin reminds us of what Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said just recently – that Donald Trump always said he wanted to keep the best features of Obamacare. This is not what he said.

But the main problem isn’t Trump. It’s the spineless, backstabbing liars in the Republican Party, who it appears, despite their rhetoric, will never change.

There are two issues Republican voters will not stand for. One is a betrayal of promises made regarding illegal immigration, and the other is full repeal of Obamacare.

If they remain on course with a kind of repeal-but-not-really approach, they will be not long for this world – or at least their positions of power. It will be painfully obvious well before the next election cycle, and conservative voters will make them pay dearly for their betrayal.